Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

https://www.wsj.com/articles/remington-arms-declares-bankruptcy-despite-surging-gun-demand-11595903187

by lxm • 6 years ago

160 301 6 years ago

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, it seems their trouble began well before COVID:

Firearms maker Remington Arms Co. filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time since 2018, weighed down by more debt than it can repay even as fearful Americans buy more guns than ever.

redis_mlc• 6 years ago

Same thing for Gibson Guitars, bought by KKR in 2013 and BK in 2018.

Gibson Guitars was founded in 1894, but a lot of the guitars they make today don't work, and are way overpriced also.

KKR renamed them to "Gibson Brands", so I guess some MBA with a PowerPoint thought related merchandise was more important than, you know, making guitars.

joe-collins• 6 years ago

They... don't work? How exactly does such a straightforward physical item not work?

refurb5• 6 years ago

Kind of amazing for a gun company to go bankrupt when the industry is seeing record sales, even ignoring the spike with Covid.[1]

[1]https://www.ft.com/content/141a70c4-1608-4013-9188-f89600679...

manfredo3• 6 years ago

Never owned a Remington myself, but they've not been held in high regard for a while. Some say it was linked to it's acquisition by Cerberus Capital. Ultimately, though, it seem alike the company was asking customers to pay premium prices for average guns. What justifies spending 800 - 1200 dollars on a Remington 700 as compared to $500 on a Ruger American?

komali23• 6 years ago

Sounds eerily similar to the Harley situation. I had the displeasure of renting a Harley something - street 500 or something along those lines - just to see what all the fuss was about. Seems much ado about nothing, why would I drop 8,000$ on a slab of iron, not even made in the USA anymore, when I could get twice the bike at half the weight for the same price from Suzuki?

FPGAhacker• 6 years ago

You can get a Harley for $8k?

lebaux• 6 years ago

Plenty of factors are helping humans to move on from brand worship:

1. More information. The iconning brands like Harley or Marlboro are from pre-internet era and heavily relied on freedom image. It was just accepted as an expression of culture. This doesn't really work when wages are not rising with GDP. In other words, people care less about brand and more about utility and price.

2. Better and more accessible competition from around the world.

3. Influencers. I know it is cool to hate them, but there are many building a brand around "one of us". As an example, one of the most popular female youtubers is doing shopping "hauls" in regular shops. You probably don't know that, why would HN watch beauty youtubers. But consider this. Linus Tech Tips is also influence marketing and you can see him talking about Linux, cheap peripherals, bashing Intel. Every category has its Linus. These people have tremendous pull, especially since younger people don't watch TV at all.

4. COVID-19. I speculate that the pandemic exposed how many companies have no reserves (either to low profits or simple because the executives are draining profits).

5. ...and many more, feel free to add.

takeda• 6 years ago

But does Suzuki make noise as if a muffler fell off?

zrobotics3• 6 years ago

Speaking as someone who owns a 64 panhead and owned a 72 ironhead (rebuilt both from parts): Harleys have almost always been inferior bikes that have a strange sort of charm. Realistically, they occupy the same place as Ural, outdated bikes that have appeal mostly for style. The last time that Harley had anything cutting-edge (ignoring Buell) was likely the knucklehead, which was developed in the 30s.

$8k will buy you a used one (not new), but there is a damn good reason there are used Harleys with essentially zero miles avaliable everywhere. I have fun riding my antique crap, but the new ones are such crappy bikes for the money. A new BMW is the same money, for a more comfortable bike that is less maintenance cost. However, I used to live on the route to Sturgis for most of Colorado, Arizona, and western Texas, and I saw probably 80% trailers vs bikes. People don't buy them to ride them, they buy them to fulfill their midlife crisis.

To further derail, I would argue Jack Daniel's, Levis, and REI are in the same boat- they are grossly overpriced compared to superior competitors and mostly trade on name brand and perception of past quality.

donw2• 6 years ago

Harley screwed themselves in a lot of different ways.

First, they fought to protect their market with tariffs on imported bikes -- okay, fair enough -- but then did absolutely nothing to either grow that market, or innovate on their products at all.

They just kept making the same bike, the same way, for a looooooooong time.

Harley's branding was 100% focused on the "60's Rebel". The Hells Angel, or the dentist that wanted to pretend he was.

The plethora of Japanese manufacturers, instead, worked to bring bikes to the masses. They made more reliable bikes, which were cheaper and easier to own, and marketed them to everybody. Dads. Moms. University students. Normal people, the kind that aren't keen on a Friday-night bar fight.

If Harley had been run by forward-thinking management, they would have worked to create affiliate brands aimed at a variety of different demographics, and really worked to innovate on their reliability and quality. Buell was an attempt at this, but it was too little, too late.

emmelaich• 6 years ago

Yes! Reminds of the AMF years of HD.

goatinaboat3• 6 years ago

Even the Hell's Angels regret choosing Harley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Barger#2000s

wcarron5• 6 years ago

I'll do ya 1 better: I had the displeasure of actually buying a new Harley (I was young and stupid). The street 500/750 are the worst of the worst from HD. The Iron 883 is the smallest "real" harley. And it's a completely different feel from the streets.

However, it was a trashcan of a bike. I was always fixing weird issues, the HD dealership absolutely sucked in every facet from timeliness of service, to prices, to the guy at the service desk just not being a cunt. I upgraded many parts just to get the damn thing to perform at a reasonable level.

Thankfully, I was hit by a car and my bike was totalled. This freed me to purchase a KTM 790 duke which is 160lbs lighter, with double the horsepower, 20% more torque, 80% longer service intervals, all for significantly less than the Iron 883.

Harley-Davidson is literally hemmorhaging cash. Their main demo is aging out of the market and they haven't been able to sell to millenials because millenials aren't stupid and go buy a Yamaha MT-09 or Suzuki, etc for waaay less. And I'm hearing whispers that H-D willl be axing their new forays into ADV, standard, and E-bikes.

gnarbarian3• 6 years ago

Spot on. They are mostly a brand. None I've seen hold a candle to my 300wm Tikka t3 lite stainless I picked up for $600.

borkt• 6 years ago

Good buy! I have a Sako finnlight 300 WSM and kinda wish I went with the WM just for ease of finding ammo, but the kick on the finnlight is pretty fatiguing as is. Completely pays off in the mountains though, How is 300wm on the tikka lite?

toomanybeersies• 6 years ago

The Tikka T3 is quite possibly the best value for money bolt action rifle on the market.

In general, I've almost always found outdoor equipment from European companies to be superior to American (regardless of where it's actually manufactured). I've always got the impression from their marketing material that the Europeans are selling a product, whereas the Americans are always selling a lifestyle.

axegon_• 6 years ago

Same, as far as firearms are concerned. But I do own several other Remington products and the quality is astonishing. One of which is a pocket knife and it's staggering how well made it is. And how outrageously sharp it is for that matter. 3 days before the pandemic started I nearly cut off my left index finger with it...

zrobotics3• 6 years ago

I will say, those are licensed products. They may be good, but that's luck of the draw, they have just sold the brand name off to some 3rd party to make a specific product.

For what it's worth, I bought a remington-branded bone saw ~3 years back, and it was absolute garbage. It failed to even finish field dressing an elk, and all that was required was one cut of a few inches. It's a shame, their older products were right up there with the likes of Starrett as the pinnacle of precision manufacturing in the US, but poor management can kill any company regardless of the quality of their products.

It is sort of ironic that, even given the US's crazy gun culture, most of the iconic American brands have been acquired (Winchester->FN) by other firms or been diluted to irrelevance (Marlin->Remington).

onetimemanytime• 6 years ago

>Some say it was linked to it's acquisition by Cerberus Capital.

History repeats itself. As if these companies care about the brand reputation over decades, they just want to milk it and then sell it to idiots (public) that recognize the name. People are buying more guns than ever, so it was probably a planned bankruptcy

cenal• 6 years ago

Corporate bankruptcy fueled by private equity?

That goes together like peanut butter and jelly.

sharken• 6 years ago

EDIT:

Point taken with the downvotes.

This feels very similar to the Intel story, except it seems that Intel is aware and will rectify the problem.

But less gun companies overall is a Good Thing in my opinion.

refurb5• 6 years ago

planned bankruptcy

Planned? You realize Cerberus would have made a lot more money if it had been a successful turnaround.

goatinaboat3• 6 years ago

As if these companies care about the brand reputation over decades, they just want to milk it and then sell it to idiots (public) that recognize the name.

To be fair it's not just corporate raiders who do this to companies. IBM and HP quite happily did it to themselves.

beenBoutIT• 6 years ago

Remington's 700 trigger mechanism has a design flaw that's caused dozens of deaths and hundreds of serious injuries. The company covered up the flaw and engaged in all sorts of shady business as opposed to issuing a massive recall. Remington's ammo on the other hand isn't bad and seems to be sold everywhere you can still buy bullets.

manfredo3• 6 years ago

The supposed defect of the Remington 700 trigger is not nearly clear cut as it's portrayed. The supposed failures often could not be replicated, and many were found to have had their triggers adjusted out of normal tolerances or otherwise modified. As far as I know, an unmodified Remington 700 trigger has not been demonstrated to fire without actuating the trigger.

People often allege malfunction and sue gun manufacturers for accidental discharges resulting in death or injury, when in reality they mishandled a loaded gun and pulled the trigger.

yaur4• 6 years ago

I have an 870 which is a fine shotgun and not so expensive. I've got better guns in the safe, but when I want something to hunt rabbits or squirrel its still my go to.

progre• 6 years ago

The main model or the Express?

nappy• 6 years ago

Remington levered up and took on a ton of debt at the wrong time. The owners gambled and lost. It's a shame that people will lose their jobs over this.

rhizome• 6 years ago

Once private equity is in charge, people are going to lose their jobs anyway.

kls2• 6 years ago

It was actually strategic by the private equity that bought them. They leveraged Remington to the hilt, extracted all of the value and then bankrupted the shell. Not that I am an advocate of what they do but it was actually brilliant. Gun companies on average don't go bankrupt, so they where able to significantly leverage Remington while hollowing it out and moving the assets to other companies. Leaving the shell for the debtors.

walrus01• 6 years ago

Among people I know who track modern firearm technology I don't know a single person who would even contemplate buying a Remington. They are to modern guns what a Harley Davidson is to a modern motorcycle.

People who care about good tech and value are buying things like CZs, aero precision and Anderson AR10/15 lowers and uppers, etc. Even the canik pistol from turkey is remarkably good quality. Savage offers good value for traditional bolt action rifles that can be used for many purposes.

blaser-waffle7• 6 years ago

buying things like CZs, aero precision and Anderson AR10/15 lowers and uppers, etc. Even the canik pistol from turkey is remarkably good quality

A lot of the CZ stuff is made in Turkey, such as their over-under shotguns. I own a couple CZ rifles and they're decent.

Never fired any Savage products but heard good things.

rsync• 6 years ago

"Among people I know who track modern firearm technology I don't know a single person who would even contemplate buying a Remington."

Anecdotal, but we needed several workhorse .308 rifles and even considering the previous issues with the Rem 700 triggers, etc., I still chose that model.

In addition to being a simple mechanism and easy to clean and maintain, it has a very high adoption rate which means parts and chassis replacements are readily available.

Those attributes, combined with a very reasonable price, made it easy to select.

If it were a single rifle, just for myself, I may have chosen a Savage model instead. On the other hand, my personal rifle now matches, and parts shares, and has identical maintenance, with all of the rest of them. I find that valuable.

bobbyd34• 6 years ago

Hard to go wrong with a classic like the 870 though... only a few good options at that price point that are easy to find.

Overtonwindow• 6 years ago

I wouldn’t say the company is held in high regard, they’ve been sort of the Walmart of manufacturing for well over 100 years. Overpriced weapons, little innovation, where is companies like Ruger have continue to innovate for a reasonable price

throwaway0a5e5• 6 years ago

Walmart actually passes its low costs on to customers though.

mathattack• 6 years ago

Getting bought by a PE fund usually requires a ton of debt and allows little margin of error.

ARandomerDude• 6 years ago

I had a Remington 700 SPS – most inaccurate rifle I've ever owned. I couldn't believe it. Sad to see what's happened to them over the years.

bobbyd34• 6 years ago

Hard to go wrong with a classic like the 870 though...

scottlocklin• 6 years ago

They seem a little overpriced when you can buy a Mossberg 500 with an extra barrel for like 2/5 the cost. Sure it ain't machined from a piece of steel; who cares? It also ain't as heavy.

ralph842• 6 years ago

No worries, another PE firm will come along to bail them out by issuing more debt and of course paying themselves a dividend. Rinse, repeat.

PeterisP• 6 years ago

Well, if the lending institutions want to take on that debt, even if it would result in it being paid out in dividend and not recoverable in a bankruptcy, that's probably their right to do so - it's the lender's money to risk as they want in hopes of profit.

ralph842• 6 years ago

The biggest lending institution in the junk bond market is now the federal reserve, so traditional notions of risk and profit are out the window.

WC3w6pXxgGd• 6 years ago

Surprising, since lockdowns and "protests" have greatly increased the rate of gun purchasing. In my state, all firearms were out of stock at the local shops for months.

Shared40410• 6 years ago

"protests"

Pretty sure there are in fact protests. Regardless of your view on them, which I won't get into because this is HN and not Reddit.

refurb5• 6 years ago

I assume it's in quotes because if there were only non-violent protests, it wouldn't drive people to buy guns. Hence "protests".

throwaway-facts2• 6 years ago

I generally agree with the message of the protests but I feel like what's going on in Portland isn't being widely covered by the media.

I am a long standing democrat for many years and it is becoming really difficult to stand behind the message when the activists have no agenda, want to continue doing this and there is no end in sight.

I absolutely resent federal forces defending the courthouse. If protestors want to burn it down (there are many videos of them trying to), what do you do? May be we just allow these people to burn it down if that means it is going to bring change.

Then there is this: How do you defend protestors who want to overthrow the United States?

Proof: https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer/status/128451275993426739...

Had to create throwaway account just to hide my identity - I am kind of terrified of everything right now. Both left and right are going insane, truth is smeared and it is difficult to have a level headed, HN-like conversion which is what makes this place wonderful.

We need to be extremely vigilant. Please I beg every one of you. I know it is pretty taboo to even be centrist around here, my plea is to fact check everything. What I am seeing as a 10 year subscriber to NYT is simply no coverage of extreme violence and absurdity of demands these protestors are creating. I have and stand by a lot majority of protestors that are actually peaceful - like the NY City march and SF protests, but Portland is on another level. I no longer support it.

tharne3• 6 years ago

I've participated in countless protests when I was younger. Not one them involved a police station getting set on fire. There are peaceful protests and there are riots. We've seen both this year.

yaur4• 6 years ago

They sell guns, but not anything that people are panic buying.

rspeele• 6 years ago

People would absolutely panic buy a Remington 870, if it was still good. A 12GA pump is a classic "don't know much about guns but want something to keep at home" purchase, and the 870 used to be THE industry standard. But they don't make 'em like they used to.

It doesn't help Remington that the quality guns they made for decades still exist on the secondary market and work just fine. So they are not only competing against their counterparts on the new gun market like Mossberg, but against their past, generally agreed to be better, output.

There hasn't been anything new, tech-wise, in guns for the past 40 years, so you can't beat the old guns with features like how a new phone has a faster processor and better camera. You have to stay on par in terms of quality and hope that people will prefer to buy new for the customer service, parts availability, and aftermarket support.

tharne3• 6 years ago

Not sure why this is getting down-voted. The individual is stating a fact that speaks to the current boom that the firearms industry is experiencing right now as result of a a pandemic coupled with civil unrest.

SpicyLemonZest2• 6 years ago

I wonder about the process here. If they filed for bankruptcy in 2018, and have to file again today in the middle of the hottest gun market in years... doesn't that mean they screwed up the first restructuring?

(I guess I don't know how many of the people rushing to the store are actually buying the kind of expensive guns Remington sells, though. I'd believe a story where it's few to none.)

momokoko• 6 years ago

This is just financial engineering from a private equity company. They are simply bleeding out the brand reputation for as long as they can.

Same playbook as every other one.

Buy a brand. Cut costs and ship all work to the cheapest labor market. Count on brand loyalty and reputation to carry sales as the quality goes down. Eventually the brand will no longer be worth much due to the lower quality product, but by then the private equity firm has made solid returns on its investment. At that point they sell off the last scraps and find another quality brand with quality products and good jobs to destroy.

1123581321• 6 years ago

Which owner of Remington are you referring to? I’m not sure I follow the theory that they experienced irrecoverable quality decline at the hands of one owner, unless you mean DuPont, and that’s hard to measure given the major changes in the retail rifle and pistol market during that time that were not favorable to Remington.

banku_brougham4• 6 years ago

A lawsuit by the Sandy Hook families is proceeding to discovery in CT state court.

hellothree23• 6 years ago

Savage 10s haven’t helped Remington much either...

refurb5• 6 years ago

Indeed. Savage Arms has been making high quality bolt actions that cost a lot less (~50% less) than Remington...for a while.

EdwardDiego2• 6 years ago

I've had my eye on their 110 Scout for a while.

yellowapple• 6 years ago

Can't tell from the article (due to the paywall), but any sign that the Navajo Nation might still buy 'em? I've heard before that they want to (specifically to address rampant unemployment/poverty among tribal members).

Animats• 6 years ago

No, they decided not to buy, from the full article.

chmod600• 6 years ago

What is the larger significance here? Does this mean the gun industry is struggling? Sounds unlikely given the spike in purchases.

Maybe it's just another old company that once had a good reputation but has lost its way. PE probably involved.

Or maybe there is some market shift. Like, fewer hunters purchasing lever actions and more urbanites buying semi-auto pistols.

killjoywashere• 6 years ago

Probably Cerberus trying to extract more money from government clients.

paulie_a5• 6 years ago

Honestly no. If anything the gun industry holds a substantial bit of political power considering the average American doesn't even own a gun.

Edit:. Touchy subject but it's a fact the average American doesn't own a gun. The political influence is substantial on the other hand. I'm not anti gun because it should be an inconsequential topic. It's like vegans had the big seat at the table.

SpicyLemonZest2• 6 years ago

It's definitely touchy, but I think even in abstract it's a bit misleading to say in isolation that the average American doesn't own a gun. There are areas of the country where guns are rare, but there are also many areas where they're very normalized and most households have one.

ancientworldnow• 6 years ago

30% of American adults own a gun and 43% live in a gun household [1] and only about 40% of Americans bother to vote in presidential elections. Gun owners are more political than non-owners [2] so it's not unlikely that half of all voters or more are gun owners or live in gun households. That's a significant political force.

Vegans, in contrast, make up around 0.4-3% of Americans depending on the poll [3].

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own...

[2] https://today.ku.edu/2018/08/21/gun-owners-are-more-active-p...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country

AmVess2• 6 years ago

People are buying bolt actions like there's no tomorrow. Just not from Remington. Tikka, for instance, has been a sleepy brand here in the US for a while, but their popularity has exploded in recent years.

Remington's owners have stripped away many of the skilled gunsmiths they used to have. A new Remington is not a very well machined firearm, and enthusiasts have found this out and no longer buy their products.

jacobush2• 6 years ago

Even the concept of gunsmiths making serial production guns is weird to me. Gunsmiths should do repair, factories with robots and CNC machines should make high precision gear.

LyndsySimon• 6 years ago

Remington tried to pivot into the semi-auto handgun market with the R51. It’s a good design, but one that doesn’t mesh well with modern manufacturing techniques. They pumped a ton of money into getting it to market, and they just couldn’t make it profitable.

pluto99• 6 years ago

I'd never heard of the R51, but after Googling it...good lord. I'd never buy it just based on its appearance. It looks more like a hot glue gun than a pistol.

atwebb2• 6 years ago

Think of Schwinn and bicycles

Or Craftsman and tools

Once known as industry leaders then moves in production and cost savings meant an inferior product. Eventually people caught on and the brand was done.

rs999gti• 6 years ago

Does this mean the gun industry is struggling?

Far from struggling. COVID, the looming election, and the riots have made it a boom time for gun sales.

Remington, unfortunately is like Harley, expensive, low quality, and trading on previous legacy.

kevwil2• 6 years ago

Industry is very strong, but PE-controlled Remington has lost their way. What's interesting to me is the 700 action design is becoming the dominant default pattern from custom manufacturers. Bighorn, ARC, Defiance, GAP, Kelbly's, Curtis, Ultimatum, Stiller, Surgeon, BAT Machine, Terminus, Impact, Falcor, Vudoo, etc. - all are compatible with a huge variety of stocks and triggers designed for the Remington 700 action specs. It will be odd if the actual Remington 700 is not in that list anymore, given the popularity of the design.

banku_brougham4• 6 years ago

Its bc of the Sandy Hook lawsuit in CT.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23984730

TedDoesntTalk• 6 years ago

Their ammo is good, especially .22 and .22 LR. But I've never known anyone who owned one of their firearms.... which really just says it all.

owlninja• 6 years ago

Their newer firearms are nothing to write home about. But my Remington 1100 20 gauge from the 70s is my favorite firearm I own.

sswaner2• 6 years ago

Shotguns being the exception, the 870 and other models are popular and reliable shotguns that many of my gun-owning friends have in their collection, as do I (two of them).

And, I agree with your comment on the ammo. Have gone through many green and yellow boxes of Remington ammo. Good stuff.

jmpman• 6 years ago

I’m just upset Marlin was sold to Remington. The Model 39A is my favorite firearm. Once Remington took over, and they moved the factory, the quality went bad.

m0zg• 6 years ago

You truly need to be shit at running your business to declare bankruptcy at a time when people are buying so many guns all the gun stores are sold out of anything decent.

purpleidea2• 6 years ago

https://archive.is/9rEMs

purpleidea2• 6 years ago

From the article:

Gun stores, which have largely stayed open during the Covid-19 pandemic, are selling to many first-time buyers worried about personal safety over the civil unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd in police custody and the ensuing movement to reduce police funding.

qserasera4• 6 years ago

Foreign weapons manufactueres declare victory once again. Russia seems to be in a military boom.

ilstormcloud• 6 years ago

Are they? What makes you say that? I would have assumed the CAATSA would make it very difficult to secure big budget sells.

qserasera4• 6 years ago

It's not very effective against places with low US economy exposure.

Economics dont happen in a vacuum

blaser-waffle7• 6 years ago

Plenty of other domestic brands to buy, Savage or Mossberg or Henry or whatever.

These are bolt action deer-getters, not Pantsir S1's. And outside of a handful of countries, no one is buying Pantsirs except Algeria (and maybe Iraq, which means half of them are going to end up as NATO playthings).

kevwil2• 6 years ago

I wouldn't disagree, overall, but it may not be that clear-cut. I heard Sig Sauer is closing a German factory and the US plant will be exporting US-made Sigs. Reminds me of the Accord I used to have, made in Ohio. Are these wins for foreign companies? I tend to think of them as domestic wins with foreign owners getting a slice off the top.

qserasera4• 6 years ago

For Sigs I suppose the market still exists in the US where it wouldn't in Europe.

coolspot• 6 years ago

You can’t legally buy new Russian-made gun in U.S. due to sanctions.

HelloNurse2• 6 years ago

Most comment seem to agree that Remington stopped making quality guns, with the obvious effects on profitability. When did this happen? Is it a cause or an effect of the mentioned private equity funds? Is it an Intel-like bad period on the product design and R&D front?

snarf21• 6 years ago

It is private equity. I have a bunch of Thompson Center guns. I love them and found the quality to be quite good. They were then rolled up into Smith & Wessen in 2010. They cut most of their line and the quality is now shite. I wouldn't buy one anymore. So sad.

blaser-waffle7• 6 years ago

Private equity, mostly. That's shorthand for corporate raiders taking over, cutting QA and other costs, trying to diversify the product lines, and banking hard on the brand to keep things going. If it worked, great, keep making that money, and if not then milk the sucker and run -- which is what we're seeing.

Problem is that modern manufacturing has gotten cheaper and more effective, and offerings from China, Turkey, Japan, and other brands in the US are only getting better, while Remington stayed the same (or even declined). I think the trigger thing was more hype than reality, but why risk getting a bad one when there are so many good choices on the market that are at or below the Remington price?

banku_brougham4• 6 years ago

Its the Sandy Hook lawsuit in CT.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23984730

chrisjarvis• 6 years ago

metapost: this is the first gun related thread I've seen on the front page, I wish it happened more often. Similarly I always get excited when I see a gardening related thread, I like reading HN perspective on "non/low-tech" hobbies.

jonahbenton2• 6 years ago

Am sure this will be downvoted but just commenting that I find discussion in these threads fascinating, terrifying, fundamentally foreign.

Having lived in large cities all my life I cannot conceive of owning a gun, or of other nearby city dwellers owning guns, or even being allowed to in a non law enforcement capacity. There are apartments in NYC with working fireplaces- seems almost equally insane to me, though gun more so because of the active harm it can induce.

Please- no disrepect intended, and not interested in starting argument/debate. Know all the arguments and the history and not advocating any position. Just sharing experience, my own lack of slots for this very large component of american life. Cheers folks.

saas_sam2• 6 years ago

For those of us who grew up around guns, your abject horror at an object is as puzzling as someone being terrified of knives or slingshots. Would be nice if cops were all good and could teleport to your location in time of need. Drive an hour outside your city of choice and that ain't gonna happen. Just sharing my own experience, cheers.

jonahbenton2• 6 years ago

Yup, totally get it. Big mental shift. Thank you.

srmatto• 6 years ago

Is your direct experience that you have actually held/brandished/used a firearm during an event when you were physically threatened? Or is this strictly theoretical?

Izkata• 6 years ago

Even within cities, people have been having that realization over the past two months with how the cops have been unable to keep up with the rioting. Permit applications are up 500% in Illinois, and sales are skyrocketing all over.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-illi...

dleslie4• 6 years ago

Indeed! Though even in non-rural environments their response times are too low to generally be of assistance in life-threatening violent altercations; and that response time is typically lower in predominantly african american neighbourhoods.

It's kind of a mark of white privilege to believe that the police will arrive in time to protect you, and that when they arrive they won't harm you.

Even for de-escalating domestic disputes and dealing with petty vandalism and neighbourly feuds they are likely a worse tool than social workers and such.

christiansakai4• 6 years ago

Why do most developed nations don't let citizens own guns then?

pluto99• 6 years ago

They often won't show up in a timely manner in the city, either. I once called them because I had broken up a fight and one of the people involved ran back to his apartment to get a pistol and was out in the parking lot with his friends searching for me, pistol in hand.

There was a police station less than a mile away and it took them 45 minutes to arrive. No doubt they intended to let events play out however they may and then roll in and take statements, which is their only actual legal obligation.

That incident really drove home for me exactly what I'm not getting for my tax dollars.

tharne3• 6 years ago

It's definitely framed by where you live. I had a buddy in rural West Texas who had a loaded AR-15 mounted on the wall of his living room. I thought it was some insane gun nut thing, until I asked him about it. He explained that the nearest sheriff was 45 minutes away and he'd also had problems with coyotes attacking his chickens. For him, it would be crazy not have a high-powered weapon at the ready since there was no one nearby to help and there was significant wildlife in the area.

On the other hand, having an AR-15 in NYC would be a nightmare for obvious reasons.

I think folks on both sides of gun debate forget this - that there are dramatically different living situations across America. In this respect, it really doesn't make sense to talk about gun laws at the federal level (I know, 2nd Amendment), because what makes good sense in New York is ridiculous to someone living in rural Texas and vice-versa. It's not purely political, there's a very real practical element that doesn't often get discussed.

throwaway0a5e5• 6 years ago

It's definitely framed by where you live.

It's not nearly that sensible and straighforward. Drive south of DC to the point where subdivisions give way to farms and you can shoot all day without being bothered.

Drive the same distance outside of Boston or NYC and you've got the same low population density but if you shoot anything in your back yard you'll get a visit from the SWAT team.

This kind of stuff really should depend on population density but we've gutted all legislative capacity at the county level and pushed it to the state level so you get a dumb situation where a state has to go entirely one way or the other which is not very efficient when it comes to making people live under sensible laws for their living situation.

There's really no fundamental reason the cities and rural areas shouldn't be able to just do their own thing on this issue. It's just that people insist on having this legislation be at the state level.

Koshkin4• 6 years ago

(I know, 2nd Amendment)

Why do American people put up with the authorities breaking the law instead of simply having the law changed? The constitution is not a bible, it can be updated. (Or, perhaps, it is indeed a "bible", in a sense?)

And, incidentally, the constitution says nothing about hunting, sporting, or even self-defense as the "legal" justification for gun ownership.

mattbrewsbytes• 6 years ago

If we are talking about practicality, you could expand this to all suburbs (towns bordering cities) as well. The practical use case is marginal for them, same for wood fireplaces and horses.

umvi3• 6 years ago

Foreigners have a lot of fear when the discussion turns to guns in America, but you have to realize that most Americans will never brandish a gun at someone nor have a gun brandished at them.

No more than a foreigner will brandish a knife at someone or have a knife brandished at them.

The media/Hollywood helps augment fears by misrepresenting the lethality of guns and also by cherry picking gun death statistics. Watch a movie and you'd think it was the easiest thing in the world to kill a dozen people with an AK-47 in seconds or take out a helicopter with a handgun. Actually go to a shooting range and you'll see what reality is like.

The chances of getting killed in a school shooting by an AR-15 for example are infintesimal compared to dying by suicide via a handgun.

Koshkin4• 6 years ago

infintesimal compared to dying by suicide via a handgun

Which, in turn, is small compared with dying in a car accident (wherever you live and whether you drive a car or not).

indymike• 6 years ago

First, I really like your comment because it is honest and highlights how different Urban and Rural issues are. Lots of guns in the hands of non-law enforcement people is scary in a big city and most of the reasons are really good (i.e. accidents, crime, etc). In the country, not owning a gun is scary because of the inability of law enforcement to respond quickly when called... even suburbs often have slow police compared to dense urban areas.

dragonsky672• 6 years ago

I'm from Australia so am missing your context. Is violent crime such a high risk for you that the proximity of law enforcement is a factor, or are you talking about using law enforcemnet to deal with dangerous animials?

My experience here and having travelled much of this country is that I've never felt at risk of violent crime whilst in remote areas and rairly in urban areas when in an area near a pub or "drug" area.

agensaequivocum• 6 years ago

If you ever visit America, I highly encourage you to stop by a gun range and try a few out.

akiselev2• 6 years ago

I live in Los Angeles and I used to feel that way until this pandemic hit - I'm not saying you'll change your mind living in NYC, just sharing my change in perspective. I bugged out mid-March to a family farm to wait out the pandemic and since then its been a nonstop string of events reinforcing why - at least outside of cities - guns are absolutely necessary. Now, mind you, one member of the household works at a research institute in San Diego with a 40 minute commute so this isn't even really rural, just exurban, but we've got septic, well, propane tank, and depend on 4G internet.

The nearest police station is 15 minutes away if I drive 100mph but writing this post is the first time I've thought about that fact. The bigger problem is animals: we've never once been able to reach our area's animal control or get a call back from them, no matter when we call. Most situations we can handle ourselves like dealing with rattlesnakes but last year a mountain lion ate our neighbor's goat and the only way to get rid of it was to shoot at it (or over it, as I found most people here won't kill rare animals unless absolutely forced to).

We've got several pets and feral cat decided to make herself home in our shed, giving birth to a full litter right before a large group of giant raccoons migrated to our area. If the raccoons in NYC are anything like the ones here, they're huge with the mammalian equivalent of alligator hide. Scaring them doesn't really work without a gun and nothing but a proper firearm will do more than piss it off and wound it, which will just make it more dangerous. The options are a) put your pets at risk every time you let them out at night, b) weapons that will only cause inhumane damage to the animal, or c) a real gun. If you're the kind of individual that values life as an inherent good but prioritizes the safety of family and pets, guns become the only realistic humane option.

Now, the ironic part is that most people I know here should absolutely not be allowed to own a gun if they lived in the city. Some of them have really warped views of human civilization that led them to live further out (rapists and murderers around every corner) and seem to relish the idea of "defending themselves" with a gun. However, the very idea of them getting enough warning to get to their gun fast enough to actually manage to load it and shoot an assailant is just laughable. Most people here use their guns so infrequently outside of LARPing at a shooting range that when it comes time to use the workhorse gun instead of their assault rifle props, they spend 15 minutes trying to figure out how to use it while the animal just stands there, confused.

As far as I know, most countries with strict gun control still leave a loophole for rural residents big enough to drive a train through. However, most of those countries have sane gun cultures where they treat them as dangerous tools and not as religious idols. Now having experienced the damage guns do in inner cities and their necessity further out from civilization, I'm torn on the issue and I don't see a way out.

throwaway0a5e5• 6 years ago

most countries with strict gun control still leave a loophole for rural residents

The primary loophole being the ability and willingness of countries other than the rich ones to enforce laws like that in their rural areas. People having guns (or anything really) they shouldn't per the letter of the law is like bottom of the priority list. The local police in rural South America, Asia and Eastern Europe have much bigger fish to fry.

wl• 6 years ago

The guns rural people tend to need are rifles. The guns that you see used in cities are almost entirely handguns. The concentration on scary black rifles is misguided unless you only focus on mass shootings, which make up a tiny fraction of firearm homicides.

stevehawk3• 6 years ago

Some of them have really warped views of human civilization that led them to live further out (rapists and murderers around every corner) and seem to relish the idea of "defending themselves" with a gun

It's unfortunate how true that statement is. Every time I've attended a class for a concealed carry permit it seems to be filled with wanna-be vigilantes. Which is ironic because almost every CCP class is a gun advocate instructor saying "do not shoot people! even if you're in the right you'll go bankrupt defending yourself in civil court". And everytime they get asked "But what if...?" "You'll still get sued..." "but what.." repeat ad nausea

volkl482• 6 years ago

For a similarly opposite perspective as someone who's currently in a rural area:

I can go out back, set up target(s) and plink away basically anytime I want. Might even do it this evening if the ammo I ordered finally gets delivered today. There's a safe direction to aim in and the distant neighbors don't mind, they do the same!

For longer range, there's various outdoor ranges around, both formal and informal (you may shoot on nearly all large tracts of public land and private land that isn't posted against it, provided you're an appropriate distance from structures and all that).

The occasional sound of gunfire here doesn't alarm anyone. One or two is someone killing a pest or hunting, lots is some target shooting.

If I put my trash outside without it being in something fully bear-proof, it will have a bear into it within a few days. Cook something nice, leave a door/window open to just the screen, and you might have a bear, moose, or something else in your kitchen one day. Police response time is 30 minutes on a good day.

ed25519FUUU• 6 years ago

What part of the country do you live in? Even on a few acres, I'm not confident that a stray bullet couldn't cause quite a bit of harm.

sjg007• 6 years ago

Ok but bear spray would work, no?

stevehawk3• 6 years ago

I mean, as a gun owner, if you told me you lived in a NYC apartment and owned a gun for in-home, self defense I'd ask "why?". You're putting the lives of a lot of people around you in jeopardy if you miss (which you almost certainly will at least once). I think if I lived in NYC, in an a place where I was concerned about that, I'd reinforce entryways so I could shelter in place somewhere.

Koshkin4• 6 years ago

Sure, sure - only criminals should be able to have guns in a city.

snapetom3• 6 years ago

As a very pro-2A gun owner, I'm upvoting you and hope at least people stop downvoting you. Downvoting this comment, which in no way attacks other people or their points of view, goes against the spirit of HN. Save that crap for reddit.

Back to your comment, though, I grew up in the San Francisco suburbs. I have pretty much lived in either metropolitan suburbs or urban center of medium sized cities. I never even shot a gun until my 30's. I guess my feeling on guns was that I was neutral until I moved to the Southern US and some coworkers took me shooting. After actually using them, and being taught safety protocols, I saw guns as what they were - hunks of metal. I didn't feel attaching emotion to inanimate objects was particularly constructive.

Also around that time, I had a few friends that were victims of violent crimes. Two of them were in supposed "safe" areas in the NYC suburbs. Pretty much changed my views on police and personal safety completely.

celticninja• 6 years ago

Tools, rather than hunks of metal.

Koshkin4• 6 years ago

Isn't calling a gun "a hunk of metal" the same as, say, calling a book "a stack of paper"? Why would a hunk of metal be such a popular prop in so many movies? Obviously, philosophy of owning and using a gun goes far, far beyond seeing it merely as a piece of metal, and calling it that on purpose, as I am sure you do, is plain disingenuous.

novaleaf2• 6 years ago

I'm pro 2nd Amendment, but anti-gun. With the equipment a modern military has at it's disposal, I fail to see how the right to own small arms is going to help keep our government in check.

AdrianB12• 6 years ago

I think you are right, but it is a sign of a problem: the disconnect from reality for some people. I had a colleague (and friend) that saw the first real life cow at the age of 16 and it was a shock for him because it did not look like what he imagined as size (he thought it is as big as a pork).

The problem is that these people are missing a lot of information about the world outside and they have opinions and vote missing relevant and sometimes essential information. They are most of the time nice and well intentioned people supporting or voting for what can be very bad things.

For example my country has the largest bear population in EU, but we are not allowed to hunt them even if they come in villages and attack people. Why? Because urban "nature-lovers" are against shooting bears: bears don't come in their large cities, they don't ever meet a bear bare-handed (this is the quotes for), so for them bears are not a problem. For the people with damages ffrom bears, they are not enough to make their voice heard and over-vote the urban people.

smegger0013• 6 years ago

I can see why you would have that point of view living in your situation. If I may Let me share with you a different perspective.

I have grown up around firearms but with reason. I have spent the majority of my life living in rural areas, as a kid/teen I lived far out of town with acres of woodlands, swamps, forest, interspersed with occasional pastures for miles in every discretion. I have had multiple encounters with apex predictors in my backyard. I have had mountain lion in my woodshed, a bear wander into my yard, and other smaller predators such as coyotes bobcat, and feral dogs try to eat my pets/animals. I also enjoy many outdoor activities such as fishing camping and hiking in the backwoods, and have encountered more predators there (the above but also various venomous snakes and wolves). I started carrying .22 loaded with snake shot as defense against rattle snakes when fishing around age 12. But before I was allowed near my fathers guns he took me out to the range for safety training. The lesson I learned that day have stuck with me.

He placed a watermelon out on the range. He then shot the melon. Next he walked out with me to its pieces and told me to put it back together. I stared at him like he was insane, He then got down at eye level with me and told me that it would do that same to a person and to never point it at anyone, that it would kill them, that guns were deadly weapons not toys. We spent the rest of the day going over gun use and safety.

While today I don't live out in the country I still own firearms mostly used for sport shooting and defense when in the wilderness. But I take gun safety very seriously. My firearms are kept in a locked gunsafe bolted to the floor, inside the case they are all kept unloaded and all have a trigger lock of are kept in a locked case inside the safe.

dsparkman• 6 years ago

If a business is purchased by a private equity company, it is not long for this world. Private equity is all about strip mining a business.

atwebb2• 6 years ago

Hilton went private as the last (big) deal before the 08 recession, went public again 5 years later...

awillen3• 6 years ago

This grossly (and incorrectly) oversimplifies an enormous industry with a number of different approaches. Some PE firms absolutely strip the assets out of businesses and maximize their short term profits, while others buy and hold for the long term and others add value to companies they buy then sell them or take them public.

I hate the whole "PE is evil" attitude from people who don't understand it. Often there are headlines about how a PE firm has taken a firm over and fired hundreds or thousands of people, and the connotation is very much that they are evil and greedy for profit at the expense of people's livelihoods, while the reality is the business in its current form was going to fail and take everyone's job with it, and it was necessary to cut jobs in order to save the business (and thus save the jobs that remain).

I know the industry is an easy target because it's a bunch of rich guys and some of them are definitely greedy profiteers, but it's just unhelpful to label the whole industry based on those. If you go by that logic then the whole tech industry is very much evil because it exploits cheap labor (Uber, DoorDash, etc.).

antihero2• 6 years ago

If you go by that logic then the whole tech industry is very much evil because it exploits cheap labor (Uber, DoorDash, etc.).

I mean, a lot of the tech industry really is just focused on extracting value from other people's labour, or replacing them altogether.

M2Ys4U• 6 years ago

I know the industry is an easy target because it's a bunch of rich guys and some of them are definitely greedy profiteers, but it's just unhelpful to label the whole industry based on those. If you go by that logic then the whole tech industry is very much evil because it exploits cheap labor (Uber, DoorDash, etc.).

The whole VC-backed tech industry, yes.

akira2501• 6 years ago

while the reality is the business in its current form was going to fail and take everyone's job with it, and it was necessary to cut jobs in order to save the business

As a rate, how many business are actually "saved" by PE firms?

(and thus save the jobs that remain)

Wouldn't that be simpler with a general bankruptcy? What is gained when a third party, often encumbered with leverage, gets involved?

but it's just unhelpful to label the whole industry based on those

It's equally unhelpful to expect the minority players in an industry to define that industry.

the whole tech industry is very much evil because it exploits cheap labor (Uber, DoorDash, etc.).

To engage the hyperbole, the current iteration of it may well be. I expected flying cars and trips to the moon, not face recognition surveillance, deep fakes and manipulative social networks.

Realistically... PE on it's own, and tech on it's own may be neutral concepts, but our current lack of regulation of their specific markets really shows.

SV_BubbleTime• 6 years ago

In this case, they were given the kiss of death. Cerberus Capital right as/after they were done striping Chrysler to the bones. They used the same executive to do it, although his name eludes me now. Paid obnoxious amounts of money for niche brands like AAC, then immediately ran them into the ground. Failed to miss every single opportunity to make money by creating a military-only section that ad functionally identical guns they were selling on the civilian side in configurations people actually wanted. Dropped the ball on quality in every plant - then refocused almost everything to an Alabama facility where they continued to drop the ball but all together now. And just generally did everything wrong.

There have been so many chances to sell. The Navajo Nation offered almost a billion in 2014 or so, couple years later a friend of mine in that industry was on a team that looked into buying with another capital company that everyone here would know, and the books showed that the 250 million they were asking was extremely optimistic for their sales and debt.

I have no doubt someone will pick it up now, but at dirt cheap, for name and maybe 20 IP designs that will keep getting made. The 870 and some Marlins will stay, all of DPMS is probably gone, dumb things like the R51 will finally see the garbage pale. The military contracts are worth something, but they largely weren’t suppling much to US mil, except some precision rifle components, and suppressors, their M4 carbines were going overseas.

So... IDK. Left and right and all over just the wrong way to run a gun company.

missedthecue2• 6 years ago

This is popular to say, but doesn't hold up to reality.

An analysis of "17,171 worldwide leveraged buyout transactions that include every transaction with a financial sponsor in the CapitalIQ database announced between 1/1/1970 and 6/30/2007" found bankruptcy rates around 6% [1]. This isn't exceptionally high.

[1] https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.23.1.121 Table 2

footlose_3815• 6 years ago

For the second time since 2018

banku_brougham4• 6 years ago

A law professor, Heidi Feldman, points out that

With bankruptcy, Remington means to halt the Sandy Hook litigation from continuing in Connecticut state court.Notable timing, it comes after a series of decisions by the trial judge refusing to let Remington dodge discovery.

hajile2• 6 years ago

No harm done here. That case was stupid on all counts and just an excuse to try to dredge up some bad PR during investigation.

The mom -- not the shooter -- bought the guns, so the advertising aspect is dumb in that regard let alone that the reputation of the weapon isn't set by Remington in any significant way.

Next, Remington sells to dealers. If anyone was "selling" someone on a Remington, it was the gun dealer (if you're already going to the store, you've already been sold on the idea of a gun and are just negotiating the details).

There has to be better ways to use a judges time (even better cases involving guns and gun manufacturers).

non-entity2• 6 years ago

Are there any other industries/ cases where the manufacturer is liable for damage due to misuse by the consumer? It seems something like this is weak to begin with.

Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

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